Let Me Know You
by Keitorin Asthore
Summary: AU. Yoh says something it doesn't mean, and it changes his life completely. Can he ever fix it? COMPLETE
1. Overheard Conversation

Shaman King belongs to Hiroyuki Takei, not me.

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"I hate Anna."

Keiko tugged her son into her arms, forgetting his thirteen years. "Why do you hate Anna, Yoh-chan?" she asked him.

Yoh pouted. "She's a demon in human form," he said. "Are you sure I have to marry her, Kaa'san?"

"Yes," Keiko said.

"I'd rather marry Amidamaru," Yoh snorted. "Anna's mean and bossy and acts like she's queen of this world _and_ the next. Can't you find a nice girl for me to marry?"

Keiko laughed and kissed Yoh's forehead. "Baby, you'll get over it," she said. "Anna is a nice girl. You just have to learn to love her."

"That's impossible. No one could love Anna," Yoh said.

She slid her son off of her lap. "You can," she told him. "It's nowhere near impossible. After all, your father learned to love me." Keiko kissed the top of Yoh's head. "Good night, Yoh."

"Good night, Kaa'san," Yoh mumbled, sliding under the covers. Keiko turned out the lights.

In the room next to Yoh's, Anna buried her face in her hands. She hadn't intended to make Yoh hate her. She only wanted him to be safe, and to be safe he had to be stronger than his opponents. Anna bit her lip savagely until the blood ran over her chin. She didn't want to cry.

_No one could love Anna_.

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	2. Day at the River

Shaman King belongs to Hiroyuki Takei, not me

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". . . And that's why I have to leave," Anna finished. "I don't think that either of us will benefit from the marriage."

Kino's eyes were unfathomable. "I understand, child," she said. "Do you have someplace to go?"

"Yes," Anna lied. "I'll be all right."

"Then you may go, Anna," Kino said. "Be careful."

Anna nodded, picked up her things, and left. She was halfway down the drive when she heard quick footsteps behind her.

"Anna! Where're you going, Anna?" Yoh called.

"Away," Anna said, not looking at him. "I'm leaving."

"Leaving?" Yoh repeated, incredulous. "Leaving where? Why?"

"I don't think our marriage would be a good idea," she told him, still walking down the driveway. "Your grandmother will find someone better for you."

"But, Anna," Yoh said. She could hear the confusion in his voice. "C'mon, Anna. Look at me!"

She finally looked at him. It broke her heart, and she had to turn away. "Goodbye, Yoh," she said. "I hope you'll be happy with the one you marry."

Anna could sense his eyes on her as she walked alone. Her shoes ground into the gravel, the only noise she could hear. She never looked back.

For a long time she just wandered along the road, until she saw the river beckoning in the distance, a shimmering silver ribbon, and followed its banks. She had no idea of where she could go, or what she could do. She had no money, no marketable skills. And no family to go home to. There was no one she could run to, no mother or father or brother or sister. There was no one to take care of her. She'd be on her own. Homeless at thirteen.

Anna was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't hear the thick slurping of her sandals caught in the mud, or feel the sharp shifting of the river's banks. She didn't notice the deep holes in the banks. Suddenly her foot got caught and she tumbled into the icy water.

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Yoh kicked at rocks. "C'mon, Anna," he grumbled. "You're so obstinate." With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach he wondered if Anna had overheard him last night. He started jogging a little faster, hoping to catch up with her before she got too far ahead.

"Yoh!" He turned around.

"Jun, Ren!" he said in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

Ren shrugged. "We just dropped by and Amidamaru said you were out here," he said.

"Where's Anna?" Jun asked.

"That's why I'm out here," he told her. "Anna got it in her head to leave, and I wanted to talk to her."

"So-" Jun's words were cut off by a sharp cry.

"Anna!" Yoh breathed. He broke into a run, searching for her.

Something was floating along the surface of the water. As he came closer, he realized it was a body. Anna's body.

Yoh kicked off his sandals and fell to his knees on the riverbed. "Anna!" he shouted, "Come on, reach for me!"

Her dark eyes continued to stare at the red, rippling stains on the surface of the water. Anna's pale lips were parted, stained with blood. Her head tipped limply, grotesquely, to the side. The blue beads of her rosary stretched gracefully from a nearby tree branch to her slender neck. Yoh wrapped his arm around her tiny waist and pulled her against him, dragging her out of the cold water.

"She's not breathing," Ren said flatly.

"She's going to be fine!" Yoh barked. He set the cold little body on the rocky riverbank, mud mingling with the blood and the water. Anna's eyes were still wide open, staring without seeing. He wrapped his fingers around the slick dull beads, vainly struggling to loosen their grip around Anna's neck.

"The beads strangled her," Jun said quietly. She placed her hand on Yoh's shoulder. "Yoh, she was dead long before you got here."

Yoh wrenched away from her. "Anna!" he screamed. "Anna can't die!"

The blonde-haired girl was silent, as silent as the grave.

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	3. Apparition

Shaman King belongs to Hiroyuki Takei, not me

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_Fifty years later. . . _

The old woman smiled. Her rose colored hair was only faintly edged in white, and her rose colored eyes were as soft as ever. "Is there anything else you would like?" she asked.

Her husband smiled faintly. "I'm fine, Tamao," he said. He patted her hand absentmindedly.

Tamao retreated into the kitchen, her thoughts wistful. It reminded her of the Bible story of Rachel and Leah, it did. How Jacob served seven years for Rachel, but only received Leah.

Fifty years ago, it was. Fifty years.

She had spent fifty years as the wife of a man who loved her, but not with the deep love a wife needed.

The one she truly loved had waited forty-six years for her, before old age and years of hard work took his life.

"Kaa'san?" Yuki poked her head in the door. "Can I help you?"

"Oh, ne," Tamao smiled at her daughter-in-law. "I'm all right here. Go pay attention to your babies."

Yuki nodded and retreated from the kitchen. The grandchildren were one of the lights in Tamao's life. Three children- although they were young adults by now, truly. The oldest, Keiko, was fourteen, and the youngest, Kenshin, was eleven. But the middle child…now he was the family enigma.

"I don't understand it," Yuki had said. "He looks nothing like me or like my husband. He looks like. . . like Yoh. . . but with that blond hair…"

Yoh had smiled at his newborn grandson, the old smile that used to come so easily to him as a boy. "Name him Hana," he had said to Yuki. "His name will be Hana."

Hana.

Yoh and Anna.

Truly, he hadn't forgotten her.

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"We went to the river today, Grandfather," Kenshin said.

Yoh nodded marginally. "Did you have fun?"

"Hai," Keiko said. "But Hana wandered off again." She poked her wayward younger brother in the ribs.

Hana shrugged. "I saw someone down there. I followed her all the way down to the water's edge, and then she disappeared," he said. "I think she was a ghost."

"Who, dear?" Yuki asked.

"Like the ghost would tell our Hana her name!" Keiko snorted.

"She did!" Hana objected. "Her name is Kyoyama Anna."

Silence reigned for a long moment.

Yuki finally grabbed her son by the arm and dragged him into the next room. "Hana!" she said. "I don't want you to ever say that name again. Never!"

"Why, Kaa'san?" Hana asked, terribly confused.

"Promise you will never say that name again, Hana Asakura!" Yuki hissed. "Promise that you will never go down to the river again! Promise!"

"I- I promise," Hana stuttered. "But…but why?"

Yuki's eyes softened. "I'll tell you someday, Hana," she said. "But not now." She left her son and returned to the rest of her family.

Hana's eyebrows lowered. "If Kaa'san won't tell me," he said, "then I'll make the ghost girl tell."

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For author's notes and commentary, please visit my homepage and go to the link marked "Fanfiction."


	4. Visions

Shaman King belongs to Hiroyuki Takei, not me.

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"Whoa!" Hana's feet slipped on the mud of the riverbank. "That would be bad." _As long as I don't tell Kaa'san_, he reasoned, _I should be okay._

His eyes caught the faintest glimmer of a spirit. Anna was sitting on a tree branch, her feet dangling in the water. "Hey!" Hana hollered without thinking. The young ghost girl started like a frightened fawn and almost vanished. "No, wait!" he called. "I just want to talk to you!"

The girl paused. "You're the boy from earlier," she said. She had a quiet voice, as if years of crying had left it raspy forever. "I told you my name, but you never told me yours."

"Oh!" he said. "I'm Hana."

"Hana," Anna repeated. "Hopefully you still remember my name so I don't have to repeat it."

"Kyoyama Anna," Hana said. "I want to ask you some questions. My mother seems to be hiding something about you."

Anna shrugged gracefully. "There's not too much to tell," she said. "What did you want to know?"

"How did you die, for starters," Hana said.

"I was walking along the river and I fell," Anna told him. "My rosary caught on a tree branch and I couldn't get free. So I drowned." Her voice was matter-of-fact and resolute, as if the details of dying no longer bothered her. . . or perhaps she just didn't let them bother her.

"Why were you at the river?" Hana asked.

"I was leaving home," Anna said. "I used to live right down there, in a big house." She pointed past the trees.

"But that's my house!" Hana said. "My grandparents' house, I mean."

"Don't the Asakuras still live there?" Anna asked, startled. "They've lived there for generations."

"They still do," Hana said. "My grandfather lives there."

Anna was silent for a moment. "Hana. . . what. . . what is your grandfather's name?" she asked, her voice barely audible.

"Asakura Yoh. My grandmother is Tamao."

The ghost turned away. "You mean Yoh married Tamao."

"Almost fifty years ago," Hana said. "When they were sixteen. My father was born just a few years later."

Anna didn't answer, and Hana realized with a shock that she was crying. "Yoh. . . married," she repeated. "So that's why. . . he never returned for me."

"How did you know my grandfather?" Hana asked.

"Go away!" Anna sobbed. "Go away, and never come back!" The ghostly girl vanished in a flash of lightning.

"Anna!" Hana called. "Anna, come back!"

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_Kyoyama Anna_. It was a name he had not heard in years. His friends knew better than to mention her around him. But no one really understood what it was like. Not even Manta knew about his twice-yearly visits to the cemetery. Once on her birthday, once on the anniversary of her death. Every time he hoped her ghost would rise up, but she never came. She never came for him.

He still remembered the days following Anna's death. He'd found the photograph lying under a stack of records, and found the memory of the day of the picture still painful and beautiful in his mind. . .

_"C'mon, guys_," _complained Manta. "I just want to try out my new camera."_

_"Do I look okay?" Tamao worried. Yoh laughed and ruffled her hair. _

_The four of them- Yoh, Tamao, Ren, and Anna- stood on the garden wall, waiting for Manta to hurry up and take the picture. _

_"This is stupid," Anna griped. "I don't see why I have to endure this."_

_"Just one picture, Anna, pretty please!" Manta pleaded._

_She sighed. "Oh, well." Anna put her hands on her hips in disgust, but lost her balance and started to fall. "Oh!" she cried out._

_Yoh caught her, wrapping his arms around her tiny waist before she could fall, and pulled her against him._

_Then Manta snapped the picture._

So there they were. Anna was caught in his arms, her hands on his shoulders, a look of surprise on her face and gentleness in her eyes.

And three days later she was dead.

Yoh rubbed his withered fingers over the slick glass of the photograph's frame. He'd regretted his words, thousands of times over.

"_Nobody could love Anna."_

He knew she'd heard him. He knew she'd left because she didn't want him to be unhappy.

And he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he'd killed Anna, as surely as if he'd pushed her in himself.

His Anna.

His beautiful, feisty Anna.

Why is it you never realize how much you love someone until they're gone?

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	5. A Second Chance

Shaman King belongs to Hiroyuki Takei, not me

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"Who is this Anna girl?" Hana muttered. He coughed as clouds of dust rose from the cardboard boxes. "If she lived in this house, there's bound to be something of hers around here."

It took him several hours of creeping around in the hot, musty attic and rummaging through old boxes before he found a box labeled "Remnants of the Celestial Room."

"Celestial Room?" Hana snickered. He cut the tape on the box and peeked inside.

There were only a few items in the box. Girl things: a few pieces of clothing, a couple of porcelain figurines from dime stores, a tiny toddler's dress. And then, at the bottom of the box, was a small book. The cheap lock broke off in his fingers, and he couldn't help but start reading.

The diary- it was obviously a diary- was fascinating. Apparently this Anna girl had had a rough life: abandoned by her family, kept in strict training, and forced into arranged marriage. And yet she still loved Yoh, which Hana thought was kind of gross. A teenage girl, in love with an old guy like his grandfather.

The last entry was dated nearly fifty years ago, when Anna was thirteen years old.

_I overheard Yoh. He doesn't love me. He doesn't love me at all. He doesn't even want me around. I'm going to leave. I have to leave. And I'll never come back, not while I'm alive. I'll find work somewhere. I'll go to Tokyo or Kyoto and find a job there. They won't care if I'm only thirteen. And I'll never come back to the Asakura complex, not until I'm dead. When I'm dead, I'll stay here forever and ever. I can watch over him that way. The only way I can ever come back is if he wants me back. The second he wants me back, I'll be there. Even if I'm dead._

"Hana?"

Hana leaped up in surprise. "Gr-Gra-Grandpa!" he stammered, hiding the small book behind his back. "Wh-What are you doing here?"

Yoh scratched the back of his head. "I was about to ask you the same question," he said. "Why would a kid like you want to come up to a place like-" He adjusted his glasses and stared at the opened box. "What are you doing with that?"

"Grandpa, it's that girl," Hana tried to explain.

"What are you doing with Anna's things?" Yoh demanded. "Why are you going through my Anna's things?"

Hana reluctantly held out the journal. "This was hers," he admitted, placing it in his grandfather's hand. "And there's something in here you need to read. Something that she promised."

Yoh took the small book, his hand trembling. "My Anna," he whispered, stroking the old worn cover. "My little Anna."

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"You promise she'll be down here?" Yoh asked.

"For the hundredth millionth time, yes, Grandpa!" Hana said. "She's here."

The river made a gentle sound as it lapped over the rocks. Barely audible over the flow of the water was a soft sobbing sound.

"Anna?"

The figure turned around; all he could see was her large eyes, big enough to swallow the world.

"Is that you, Anna?"

"Hai," she whispered. "It's me."

Yoh held out his hand to her. "I didn't know…that you were still here, Anna," he murmured.

"Why didn't you come for me?" she whispered.

"I'm sorry, Anna," Yoh said. "I know that I was the one who killed you."

Something feather light touched his cheek. "You're so old, Yoh." Anna rested her weightless hand on his face. "You're not the boy I knew."

"Anna," Yoh began. "Anna…"

"Why do you keep saying my name?" she whispered.

"Because I have wished to say your name for years," he told her. "I want to go back in time. I want to save you."

When he said that, Anna faded away in his arms and everything went black.

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	6. Somebody's Gotta Show You The Light

Shaman King belongs to Hiroyuki Takei, not me.

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"Anna!" Yoh cried. He dove into the water and grabbed her. Anna's head tipped grotesquely to one side; her large dark eyes were open and sightless. Blood stained her pale face. Tenderly Yoh lifted her out of the water and laid her on the riverbank. He stroked her damp blonde hair. "C'mon, Anna," he whispered. "It's okay, little girl."

Anna didn't answer. Her eyes stayed open, but they didn't see him.

"She's been dead for awhile," Jun said. "Yoh, we've lost her already. It's no use."

Yoh wrenched away from her. "Anna won't leave me," he said, his voice tight. He grabbed the small girl's rosary and yanked as hard as he could, sending the glass beads flying like crystal tears around them. Anna's chest heaved as blessed unrestricted air flooded her lungs.

But then she didn't move again.

"Come on, come on, you promised," he said. He pressed his mouth over hers, forcing gulps of air into her airways. Two rapid breaths, then he pulled away and pressed his fists against the hollow of her ribcage. Then two more breaths, and the cycle repeated.

Finally, with a sharp intake, Anna sucked in breath on her own. "That's a good girl, that's a good girl," Yoh praised. He tilted her head to the side and stroked her hair away from the gash on her head. Blood was still flowing freely. "Come on, wake up, wake up."

Suddenly her long lashes fluttered. She jerked in his arms and coughed up red-tinged water. Yoh cradled her gently. "Anna," he whispered. "You came back. You came back to me!" From far away he could hear the sad wail of a siren, but all he could see was his Anna, his living and breathing Anna.

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He jolted awake. "Where am I?" he asked.

"The waiting room," Ren said quietly. "You fell asleep."

Yoh rubbed his forehead, remembering. Suddenly he leaped upright. "Anna!" he exclaimed. He grabbed Ren by the lapels. "Where is she? Is she all right?"

"Calm down, Yoh," Ren said. "Anna's in ICU. She's in a coma."

"A coma?" Yoh repeated.

"She was dead when you found her," Ren explained. "The doctors can't explain it, but her heart restarted, apparently. Her will to live is astounding."

"What room is she in?" Yoh demanded. "I can't leave her alone."

"My sister's with her," Ren tried to say.

"I don't care. I need to see her. Where is she?" Yoh asked.

Ren sighed. "Room 293," he said. Yoh was already heading towards the room.

He cracked the door open slightly. Jun was sitting next to a bed full of wires and tubes. It took him a moment to realize that somewhere, in the middle of the bed, was Anna.

Jun looked up. "She's sleeping," she whispered. "They're trying to bring her fever down."

"Can we…can we have a moment?" Yoh asked.

"Sure," Jun smiled, getting up and patting his shoulder as she left. Yoh sat down in the vacated chair, pulling it close to the bed. He picked up her small limp hand and stroked it.

"Hi," he whispered.

Anna's pale face was obscured by the oxygen mask covering her nose and mouth. Her long hair draped over the pillow, still matted with blood. Along her hairline was a thin black line of stitches. Yoh squeezed her fingers.

"Can you hear me, Anna?" he asked. "I don't know if you can hear me, but," He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry for what I said. I was wrong." He dashed at his eyes. "I know that I was wrong to say what I did, because. . .I love you, Anna." It was hard to say it, even when she was asleep. "I really do. It just took me a while to figure it out…even though you've known forever."

Yoh leaned over and brushed his lips against her forehead. "Good night, Anna," he whispered. He got up to leave.

"Yoh."

Her voice was faint and muffled under the oxygen mask, but her dark eyes held a light he'd never seen before.

"Yoh, is that you?"

He grasped her thin hand. "Anna," he said. "I'm right here."

Yoh saw her smile faintly. "You saved me," she whispered hoarsely. "Arigato."

"I almost killed you," he said. "I know that you heard me that night."

She closed her eyes tightly. "I heard you," she said. "I don't want you to be unhappy. I promise I'll leave you alone." Her dark eyes opened again, and this time they sparkled with tears. "I'll come back if you ever want me…but I'll leave. Since that's what you want."

Yoh's jaw dropped. "Anna!" he exclaimed. He gathered her into his arms, careful not to jostle her. She whimpered, her hot forehead pressing against his shoulder, craving his touch. "Anna, I don't want you to go anywhere. I want you to stay. Stay here, with me." He touched his cheek against his temple. "Just…just stay."

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